Six Months After
by Nichneven
Summary: It's been six months since Scott died at the sword of an oni outside of Eichen House. Stiles is not coping well. Sterek. Dark!fic.


**Title** – Six Months After

**Rating** – T

**Pairing** – Stiles/ Derek

**Word Count** ~2,000

**Disclaimer** – I own no part of Teen Wolf or its characters.

**Spoiler** – Season 3(b).

**Warnings** – Major character death (implied). Divergence from canon at Season 3b's "Insatiable". Implied prostitution, alcoholism, mental instability.

**Summary**- It's been six months since Scott died at the sword of an oni outside of Eichen House. Stiles is not coping well. Dark!fic.

It's been six months since Scott McCall lost the battle with the oni outside Eichen House. Six months since Derek and Kira killed the nogitsune with the combination of a bite and a sword.

Six months.

Six months since Stiles Stilinski has struggled to forget. He had never been afraid to die for Scott. He would have taken Scott's place in an instant, had he had the opportunity. But he hadn't. He hadn't even been there when Scott died from the oni sword through his chest. But he'd heard the story—just once; he couldn't stand to hear it a second time.

Allison had been there; had folded her arms around him as he died. Her face was the last one Scott had seen, and that may have been okay, except that it had been _Stiles_ name he had called out. It had been _Stiles_ he had begged for. It had been _Stiles_ that was his last whispered word.

Six months.

How could it be six months already? Stiles blinks his eyes and then rubs at them in an attempt to dispel the gritty feeling beneath his lids. He can't be sure what time it is; he installed black out curtains on the third week After.

The first two weeks After, well, Stiles had spent them in Beacon County Psychiatric Center, screaming.

He is well-medicated, thanks to his father and friends' diligent nagging. A little Trileptal to stabilize his mood; Wellbutrin and Zoloft for his depression; Klonopin for his anxiety attacks; an occasional Ativan to help him sleep.

And for the times in between, he's got whiskey.

It's not hard to get, not really, no matter his age. He buys it by the case (two at a time) online and has it delivered to this guy called Demarco, who signs for it for the bargain-basement price of a hundred dollars a shipment. The money is a little harder to come by, but he's on a first name basis with Lloyd down at the pawn shop on Main. Lloyd doesn't short-change him after their third transaction. That one was the worst; Stiles had pawned his lacrosse gear. There had been an embarrassing amount of tears, but Lloyd just nodded and slid the stack of tens across the glass counter.

Eight weeks After, Lydia had accused Stiles of being an alcoholic. He shrugged at her and closed his door in her face. She kicked and raged at the door for almost an hour before she had given up and packed it in.

Nine weeks After, his father stages an intervention in their living room. There are fourteen empty whiskey bottles on the coffee table in front of the couch. The coffee table has ring-stains from years of Scott and Stiles putting sweaty drinks on it without a god damn coaster. Stiles listens to the words his friends throw his way, chewing at the cuticles on his thumbs until they are raw and aching, and staring at those rings. _Not your fault_, says Isaac. _He wouldn't want this_, Melissa McCall says. _Not your fault_, Lydia says, because it bears repeating. _Don't do this_, Derek says. He_ would be so mad to see you like this_, Allison says, and she's probably right. _Come back to us_, his dad says. Kira doesn't bother to show up.

"I can't," Stiles says, stands and goes to his room. He pushes the slide locks on the top and bottom of his door into place. He had installed those four weeks After.

Twelve weeks After, Derek takes up residence in the spare room across the hall. It may have been earlier, but Stiles doesn't know. He is not even sure _why_ Derek is suddenly in his house, but he doesn't much care. What he cares about is that he is short thirty-eight dollars for his next shipment.

It doesn't seem like a big deal to fall to his knees the first time for Demarco. Thirty-eight dollars for five minutes of work and a sore throat. He opens the first bottle in Demarco's front yard. The whiskey coats his throat and erases the five minutes anyway. He wakes up three hours later, still in Demarco's yard. He loads the cases into the back of his Jeep and drives to his favorite hiding spot for his stash: the Nemeton. No one ever goes there anymore, not since. Not After.

He lost track of the weeks after the fourteenth. That was the week Derek found him passed out in the hallway, face down in a puddle of his own vomit. Derek promised to keep it from his father only if Stiles stopped drinking. It was nothing to promise that; Stiles had become an adept liar After.

He had started staying at the Nemeton more and more after that. He drank in peace, with his phone off, curled up with the pillow he'd stolen from Scott's bed. It didn't smell like his best friend, not after all this time. Not After. It smelled like sweat and tears and vomit and whiskey; it smelled like Stiles.

He loses the keys to his Jeep, so he leaves it in the woods, buried in newly fallen leaves. He can't really see the road to drive anyway, so he walks wherever he goes. Mostly, he goes to Demarco's. He's out of money, but there are always ways to pay. So he pays. Every time. It's no big deal. The whiskey fixes it soon enough.

Demarco tells Stiles that the sheriff's department is searching for him, but Stiles knows that. He hasn't spoken to his father in—what is it? Weeks? Months? He's not sure. He has no intention to reach out. Let him come; let him find what he's looking for, this wreck of his son. This shell.

It's Derek, in the end, that finds him. Derek Hale, who never liked him much. That's okay; Stiles never liked Derek much, either.

"Enough, Stiles," Derek growls, flashing red eyes at him. Stiles vaguely recalls that Derek became an alpha again after taking out the nogitsune. The new alpha. Pack Hale, not McCall. "_Enough_."

Stiles turns away, trying to pull his arms free of Derek's grip. He's lost the muscles he'd built up from lacrosse. From running with wolves. From living. He can feel the press of skin against bone. He can see the sag of his cheeks when he comes across a mirror. He broke the last one he saw, leaving a cut across the side of his left hand.

"I have been patient with you," Derek persists, yanking hard at his arms. "We have _all_ been patient with you. Now, _enough_. No more."

"I don't want," Stiles says, but doesn't bother to finish.

"And I don't care," Derek snarls, even though it's a lie that even Stiles can detect. He is there, shaking Stiles like a rag doll because he _does_ care. "You are coming with me."

"No," Stiles says.

"It's not up for discussion," Derek says and turns to drag the frail and dizzy Stiles along in his wake. Stiles stumbles and falls to his knees, but his captor doesn't pause to help him up, instead dragging him across the forest floor without sympathy. "I've spoken to your father and he agrees. You're coming with me."

"No, wait."

Derek doesn't bother to respond.

Twenty-three weeks After, Stiles has done the math again. Twenty-three weeks. He's in a mostly bare room in a mostly bare cabin. He thinks he is in the mountains, but he hasn't ventured outside after the first week of crying, begging, and trying to escape Derek. He was too weak to get far, and Derek only brought him back again and again.

"How long?" Stiles asks Derek when he comes in with freshly chopped firewood.

"Three weeks so far," Derek responds. Stiles asks every day.

"How much longer?" Stiles asks his second routine question.

"As long as it takes," Derek says, stacking the wood next to the fat-bellied stove in the corner of the main room. "That's up to you."

Stiles pulls his sock-covered feet up and tucks his knees under his chin. He has more meat on his bones, thanks to Derek's relentless and rigorous feeding schedule. Six meals a day, without fail, high in protein, iron, and good carbohydrates. Stiles doesn't taste it, but swallows it down just as he swallows down his handful of medication each morning.

Derek finishes stacking the wood and comes to sit in the chair across from Stiles. He opens a deck of cards and starts to deal them without a word. Ten cards to Stiles; ten cards to himself. He sorts his cards into suits and then into high to lows, and when he's settled, raises his eyes to Stiles.

With a sigh, Stiles picks up his own cards and their daily rummy session begins. It's like this every day, at least since the first day Stiles could sit up without retching on the floor from the DTs.

"I've had Demarco removed from Beacon Hills," Derek says without preamble. Stiles isn't sure how he knew about Demarco, but isn't surprised. "You won't be able to find him when we get back."

Stiles nods. He feels no shame over what he did with Demarco. He paid for goods with his mouth and his ass. It was no big deal.

Derek doesn't say anything else the rest of the day.

The twenty-fifth week After, Stiles starts pacing the perimeter of the cabin. Derek walks beside him, with him. Neither says much; they've exhausted all possible topics—or it just feels like they have. Except for one thing, that never gets said enough.

"I miss him," Stiles says and wipes his eyes wearily. There are band aids over each of his thumbs; Derek's attempt to quell his insatiable need to gnaw at his cuticles.

"So do I," Derek agrees, coming closer to Stiles with his next step. Their shoulders brush. "We all do."

"The world is not a good place without him," Stiles says and he means it.

"The world is a _different_ place without him," Derek says. "We will never stop missing him, but we will live. Scott would want us to live."

"Not like this," Stiles muses.

"Not like this," Derek agrees. He snakes an arm around Stiles' shoulders and hauls him in for a one-sided hug.

Twenty-six weeks After. Six months. Six months After, Derek takes Stiles back to Beacon Hills. There is no welcome home party, there is no cake. Friends stop by Derek's loft in groups of two or three, but they don't stay long. _We've missed you_, Lydia says and hugs him. _About time, _says Isaac. _Kira's gone_, says Allison. _Thank god_, says his father.

Stiles curls up in the middle of Derek's bed, Scott's well-laundered pillow beneath his head. Six months After, and Stiles is still alive. Six months After, and Derek crawls into bed beside him, hauls him to his chest, and holds him tight.

~~END~~


End file.
